WEBVTT
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Hey, this is Matthew Ricks and today on the Music
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Business newsletter. It only took five days, but we got
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our first email from an artist who wants me to
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promote CDs and vinyl over streaming for you, the artist.
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So we'll get into that email a second. Make sure
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if you like this video to like it, subscribe, leave
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a comment. If you agree, If you don't agree, leave
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a comment. If you have a question on the music
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industry that you want me to answer, just go to
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Matthewicks dot com and click submit your question. Give me
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as many details as possible and I will answer it
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here or in the audio version.
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Now.
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To send an email, you don't have to become a member.
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You don't even have to subscribe or buy a book
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or join a patren Just go to Matthewricks dot com
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and click submit your question.
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It's that easy. So before we dive.
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Into this email today, I feel like it's important to
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say back in twenty fourteen, we were doing.
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Events all around the.
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World, and in twenty fourteen, Apple Music was called Beats Music.
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At that moment in time, Napster was still kind of
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doing streaming services. Xbox had a streaming service PlayStation out
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of music streaming service and artists then were mad that
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I told artists to go on Spotify, go on Beats
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music at the time, and I should be promoting CDs.
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It's good to see twelve.
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Years later we're still at the same place. But let's
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dive into today's email.
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He says, Matthew, I.
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Discovered your music newsletter emails the other day and I
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started deep diving into matrics minutes on a streaming service.
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We won't tell me which one, probably Spotify. You can
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listen to the matrics minutes on Spotify as well.
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He says.
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I like some of what you say, but I have
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to be honest. I'm starting to question how much you
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really have help independent artists. You always talk about streaming services, algorithms,
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release strategies, and building a fan base online. But if
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you truly cared about artists, you'd be encouraging them to
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stop giving their music away for free on streaming streaming
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platforms that pay fractions of a cent per play. The
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email continues, The reality is that Spotify, Apple Music and
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all of these music platforms profit off the back of
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small artists.
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Well that's not true.
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They profit off the back of people who register for
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accounts who never play music. If you're getting one hundred
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plays a year, one hundred plays a year, if you're
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getting a hundred plays a month, how are they profiting
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off of the backs of you.
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That's just kind of.
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A really short sighted approach to this whole thing. I
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have always viewed streaming services as a great marketing tool.
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Back in the day when when you could buy an
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album at Best Buy or Tower Records for seventeen twenty bucks,
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artists were making like two dollars per CD.
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Two dollars.
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Because the record label, if it was a twenty dollars CD,
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record labels are usually typically selling it in for eight
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to ten dollars. The distrib the distribution company gets their cut.
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Record label is going to get their cut. You have
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to pay it back, and you're recouping at about maybe.
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Three dollars for a good release. Two to three dollars
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per release is what you were recouping.
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If you were an A list artist and you renegotiate
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your contract, you could probably get it up to four bucks,
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maybe maybe four fifty. So it was like if you
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sold the CD at Tower Records for twenty dollars, you
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made twenty dollars of it. The people who made the
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most money off of those CDs was the retailers, but
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because they had to buy it in and then you know,
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the way that the industry worked back then is you'd
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have a restocking fee.
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So if you had a CD and you know.
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Let's say Fye in Wichita, Kansas, bought fifteen copies for
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one store and fourteen of them didn't sell after ninety days,
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they ship those back, they would charge the distributor to
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ship them back. The distributor would charge the label a
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restocking fee, and guests who had to pay that restocking
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fee the artist. So I've never been like, look, you
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can buy a Bugatti off of Spotify plays. But what
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I have always said for eleven years now is that
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people are more likely to check into your music and
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figure out what you're about if it doesn't cost them anything.
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But let's continue with the email, shall we. You know,
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these platforms profit off the backs of small artists who
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never make enough money to survive. If I really wanted
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to empower artists, I'd be telling them to press CDs,
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sell vinyl, and use platforms like band camp, places where
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people actually pay for music. Well, I believe if I'm correct, Then,
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if you release something on Spotify or you release it
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on Apple Music, it's most likely available on the iTunes store,
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and it's most likely available on the Amazon Music Store
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where they can buy it as an MP three. So
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if your fans love your music so much, why are
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they if they're on Apple Music, why are they bypassing
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the iTunes store and going just Apple Music to listen
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to you? Why aren't they dropping a dollar twenty nine
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for your single because they wouldn't listen to it if
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they had to. You know how many artists that come
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across on Instagram or artists who send me messages on
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Instagram and they seem like a cool person or or
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I like their vibe or whatever, I'll go to Spotify and.
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Listen to it.
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But if I had to go to Apple Music or
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iTunes Music iTunes store and spend a dollar twenty nine
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to check it out to decide if I like it
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or not, it ain't gonna happen. It's just it's it's you,
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as an artist won't even do that. And you want
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me to come out here and encourage artists to press CDs.
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Last year, in my house with my two kids, we
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don't even have a DVD player.
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Everything is streaming here.
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We got all this, We got the streaming services, we
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got Spotify, we even have Alexa, so we don't, you know,
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so we can be so new age.
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We don't even have to walk to the other room
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and talk to each other. Last year for Christmas, my
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daughter got a CD player.
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I think she was like, Okay, this is kind of
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a weird thing, but all right, and instantly she loved
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it because it was new and it was unique and
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it was different for her. And had she not had
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a dad who's in the industry or other family members
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who are in the industry, all those CDs she gets
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she would have to pay for and she isn't gonna
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do it. So the CDs to her is a novelty
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because she doesn't pay for it. Because when you're when
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you're in the industry, you'll get on servicing list, so
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you'll get this new releases sent to you in the mail,
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or you just you know, hey, my daughter really likes
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this artist. Can I get the new CD? But I
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will tell you what that story go aha, See I'll
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tell you the story.
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Though.
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As the dad man, I got CD cases all over
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the house, we're getting ready to make a move to
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a new house. You got to there's a box of
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CD cases there, you know, And she's traveling right now.
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She's got to carry her headphone, she's got her CD player,
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she's got she's got the CD case.
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Who's gonna do that? Not to mention, you want me.
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To go out there and tell these artists, Okay, listen,
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you just made a bunch of music. Now I want
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you to go and press a thousand CDs, which is
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probably gonna be a couple of thousand dollars, and then
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go hound a thousand of your closest friends to buy
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your CD that they might not even have a place
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to play it. If it wasn't for my daughter's CD,
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we wouldn't have a CD player, like we would have
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nowhere to play CDs in my house, in my car,
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My computer doesn't have a CD drive. So why would
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I encourage artists to do something that I don't think
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is beneficial to them? As we're selling vinyl, do you
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realize how expensive making vinyl is, what the process is? Yeah,
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I see those ads on Instagram. We're like, no of
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thems for our vinyl, But it's gonna be like seventy
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five bucks eighty bucks, and it's not a quick turnaround.
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So if you want to release an album, you know,
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if it's today's Monday and you want to get your
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album out by the following week, you're not doing that
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with vinyl. You ain't doing it with CDs, but you're
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definitely not doing it with vinyl. So why would I
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encourage an artist to do that? Why would I encourage
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an artist to go to a merch table at their
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club show they're doing, or their county fair show they're doing,
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or their coffeehouse show and sell thirty dollars vinyls Because one,
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there's not a huge markup on those either. You want
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to talk about pennies on the dollar, that's vinyl. And
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then to send them to band camp. Once again, if
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they want to buy your music, why don't they just
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go and buy it at iTunes? Why are we sending
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them to band camp? Go because you keep one hundred percent.
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You gotta really really love an artist, or really be
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intrigued by an artist to make extra steps to do
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them a favor to listen to their music. Years ago,
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like five, six, seven, eight years ago, the big thing
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for artists, it was a rappers thing. It was really
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a rappers thing is their bios wouldn't give you any information,
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but it would say google me. And I said this
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in a matrics man in like twenty sixteen, like google yourself.
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You want me, who I know nothing about you, to
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go and like google you and start doing like like
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oppo research on you, like no, and now this guy here,
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And I see bands always trying to promote their band camp,
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you know, and there might be like, you know, if
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you got ten thousand fans, you might get three who
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are gonna go to your band camp. Want this to
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be as effortless as possible for people to be able
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to to fall in love with your music and become
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a fan by merchandise come to your show. But now
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you're going, hey, look, I know I might have came
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up in the algorithm on Instagram, or you might have
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saw a sponsored ad, or somebody might have told you
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about me.
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So here's what I want you to do. Now.
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Don't worry about going to Spotify, don't worry about going
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to Apple Music or Title or Amazon Music. I want
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you to go to this really obscure website called band
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camp that you've probably never heard of. Because you're not
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in a band or in the industry.
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It's like ten years.
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Ago when everybody was sending everybody to a Pure Volume
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or reverb Nation. Yeah, my music's on reverb Nation. It's
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on Spotify too, right, Well, yeah, well I'll go check
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it out on Spotify. Why because I don't Reverb Nation's
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website at the time was garbage, and I have the
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app for Spotify, So why would I?
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Why would I?
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Why would I tell artists to do stuff that's going
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to put them in debt and that's also gonna just
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really annoy and bother their their their potential fans.
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But anyways, let's continue with the email.
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The email says, it just feels like you've bought into
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the same system that's been exploiting musicians for decades. You
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say you want to help artists win, but how can
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we win in a game that's rigged.
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Well, it's not. It's not that the game is rigged.
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It's just that Spotify doesn't pay enough. And does Spotify
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pay enough?
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No, they do not.
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But I don't think Instagram pays enough to artist for reals,
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I don't think you two pays enough.
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I don't think TikTok pays enough.
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Apple Music is probably the best, but that's still not
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enough for you guys. A penny per play is still
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not enough. And I've asked artists before, like how much
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does Spotify pay you per play?
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And nobody can really give me an answer.
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They usually just like, well, you know, an equal, equal,
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equal out a fair fair amount. I'm like, yes, but
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what does that mean to you? Because your cost of
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living where you live in the world, your cost of
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living is different from the other artists. So if if
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it's more expensive to live in Los Angeles than it
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is to say, Mississippi, do Los Angeles artists get paid
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more than Mississippi artist because of the.
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Cost of living?
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Is it well, we went into a studio and recorded,
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you did yours at home, so we should make more
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per stream?